Police officers deployed at a Los Angeles parade. (Photo: Betto Rodrigues)OPINION: California’s Assembly Bill 931, which would modify the state legal standard governing police officers’ use of deadly force, is a promising advance on existing law, but the current proposal is deeply flawed. To meaningfully reform police practices and properly regulate the use of deadly force, some significant amendments are necessary.
The CalPERS headquarters in Sacramento. (Photo Shutterstock)A bill by state Sen. Steven Glazer, D-Orinda, giving new state workers the option new University of California workers received two years ago, a 401(k)-style plan rather than a pension, is opposed by unions and soon may be opposed by CalPERS. More than a third of eligible new UC employees have chosen a 401(k)-style plan. Instead of a guaranteed lifetime monthly pension check, the 401(k) plan that replaced pensions in most of the private sector uses individual tax-deferred investments to build a retirement fund.
Photo illustration of a nest egg. (Photo: Hidesy, via Shutterstock)If you don’t give city employees a pension, what happens? San Diegans voted five years ago this month to switch all new city hires, except police, from pensions to 401(k)-style individual investment plans, becoming one of the first big cities to take the plunge.
CalPERS' governing board during a 2013 meeting. (Photo: CalPERS board)Calpensions: New annual CalPERS reports no longer prominently display the pension debt of local governments as a percentage of pay, making it more difficult for the public to easily see the full employer pension cost.
Presidential contender Hillary Clinton campaigning in Oakland. (Photo: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press)After Hillary Clinton’s Oakland rally, Kayla, 15, had tears running down her cheeks. She was upset. Kayla, a student at Oakland’s MetWest High School, had walked to the rally site Friday with some classmates and at least one teacher. It wasn’t far: The event was held nearby at the La Escuelita Elementary School gymnasium.
San Bernardino police officers, members of the SWAT team. (Photo: Juno Kughler Carlson, omnitrans.org) omnitrans.orgSan Bernardino’s plan to exit bankruptcy, possibly next year, cuts the pensions of 23 retired police officers who receive an unusual supplement to their regular CalPERS pension. The supplement boosts pensions to the same amount now common among police and firefighters, a standard set by the Highway Patrol in a CalPERS-sponsored bill, SB 400 in 1999.
Tour goers flank a mannequin of Dorothea Puente at the house on F Street. (Photo: Steve Martarano)Reporter’s Notebook: “If you’re interested in bodies,” the watch commander said cryptically, “go out to 14th and F streets.” I pulled up to the curb just a heartbeat ahead of a Channel 40 van. Unbeknownst to me, Sacramento’s most sensational serial murder case had started to unfold. I walked up to the excavated mound of dirt on the side of the yard and the homicide lieutenant there met me, and quickly said police had just found what they had been digging for all day: human remains. The officer pointed to a slab of concrete covering the side yard and said they would start digging it up the next day looking for more bodies.
Cover of "Go Set a Watchman" released by HarperCollins.Review: Atticus Finch, the lawyer at the heart of Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” has been, for more than half a century, the embodiment of American virtue. The character was vividly brought to life in 1962 by Gregory Peck in a performance that won Peck the Academy Award for best actor. In 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest hero ever in American film. That was before publication last month of Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman.”
On the outskirts of San Bernardino. (Photo: Steve Heap)A San Bernardino plan to exit bankruptcy follows the path of the Vallejo and Stockton exit plans, cutting bond debt and retiree health care but not pensions. Then it veers off in a new direction: contracting for fire, waste management and other services. The contract services are expected to reduce city pension costs. Other pension savings come from a sharp increase in employee payments toward pensions and from a payment of only 1 percent on a $50 million bond issued in 2005 to cover pensions costs.
Demonstrators protesting police conduct at a gathering in Capitol Park, Sacramento, October 2014. (Photo: Rachael Towne)An effort is under way to make California the first state in the nation to have its top law enforcement officer independently investigate deaths in police custody, bypassing the prosecutors in California’s 58 counties. Under the plan, the state attorney general would appoint a special prosecutor to direct an investigation when a civilian dies as a result of deadly physical force by a peace officer.